The present disclosure generally relates to organic solar cells and similar electronic devices. Today's increasing demand for renewable energy resources, especially solar power, is driving researchers to develop low cost, efficient photovoltaic devices. Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are an attractive route toward solving the terawatt energy problem. In addition to the potential low cost of this technology, bulk heterojunction (BHJ) based solar cells can offer other advantages, such as flexibility, lightweight, and high throughput manufacturing, such as roll-to-roll and other similar techniques. BHJ systems have shown power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 4% to >7%. Organic solar cells have undergone a three-fold increase in PCE between 2001 and 2010, from about 2.5% to about 7.7%. These rapid gains may be a consequence of enhanced performance in polymer photovoltaic materials in BHJ solar cells. A benchmark goal for OPV researchers is to achieve a PCE in excess of 10%, which would help to make OPV competitive with other thin-film photovoltaic technologies. The ability to control the multiple interfaces within an OPV device may help achieve this and other objectives.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.
Corresponding reference characters and labels indicate corresponding elements among the view of the drawings. The headings used in the figures should not be interpreted to limit the scope of the claims.